How Much For A Miracle
by angel-death-dealer
Summary: Johnny's life hangs in the balance of whether his family can afford his surgery, and there's only so much eightyearold Sue can do to help. Will it be enough?


**How Much For A Miracle?**

She could remember the day so clearly, that it could have been yesterday. However, it was twenty years ago now. Twenty years to that exact day. November 12th.

She was eight years old when she heard that fateful conversation which her parents were having. She'd stood by the half-open door, concealed in the hall as she stood in her tiny white nightgown, playing with the lace cuffs on the edge of the sleeves. She'd only gone in to say goodmorning, but when she'd heard them talking, she stopped.

They were talking about her younger brother, Johnny. He wasn't home at the moment, and that made her sad to remember. He was very sick and in the hospital. She couldn't remember what the doctors called it at the time, but now, twenty years later, she knew it to be a strain of the meningitis illness, and whilst he could have easily fought of the infection, there was an anuerism inside his brain that was threatening to explode if it wasn't removed soon.

Her father used to be a doctor, but when an incident had stripped him of his liscence, he found it hard to take up employment in the medical profession again, and so they were quickly running out of money. They were moving into an apartment complex on the edge of town in a few weeks time, because they didn't have the money to pay for Johnny's medical bills and the morgtage as well.

But what she heard that morning was what finally caused the eight-year-old to take matters into her own hands. Only a very costly surgery could save her brother now, and it was looking like there was no one to lend them the money to pay for it. She wasn't stupid, and despite being young, she knew that her brother wouldn't be coming home unless he had the surgery.

She heard her father say to her tearful mother, with a whispered desperation; "Only a miracle can save him now."

Susan went into her bedroom, creeping back down the hall so that they didn't know she was awake yet. She dug around underneath her bed until she came to the glass jam-jar she kept hidden from everyone. Inside, it was filled with change, all small-change coins that she'd found on the street. She poured it all onto the carpet of her bedroom floor and counted it carefully. And then she counted it again, and again, until she had counted it five times to be sure. The total had to be exactly perfect.

Carefully placing the coins back into the jar, she hid it at the bottom of her school bag. All morning, she said nothing, and she didn't complain about how heavy her school bag was either. At the end of the day, when she was walking home from the school down the end of her street, she crossed the road and went into the pharmacy.

There she should, waiting patiently with all the manners her parents had taught her, for the pharmacist to give her some attention, but the elderly man was too intenseley talking to another man to be bothered by an eight-year-old girl. Susan twists her feet to make a scuffing noise. Nothing. She cleared her throat with the most disgusting sound she could muster. Still, it was no good. Finally, she took a quater from her jar, and banged it on the glass counter.

That worked.

"And what do you want?" The pharmacist asked her in an annoyed tone of voice. "Can't you see I'm busy, child? I'm talking to my brother. He's visiting from Chicago and I haven't seen him for a long time." He said, without waiting for a reply to the question he'd asked her.

"I want to talk to you about my brother," Susan said in a tiny voice. "He's really, really sick...and I want to buy a miracle."

"I beg your pardon?" Asked the pharmacist.

"His name is Johnny, and my Dad told me that he has something bad growing inside his head. I heard him and Mom talking this morning, and they said that only a miracle can save him now." She said, mustering up all her bravery. "So how much does a miracle cost?"

The pharmacist softened a little. "We don't sell miracles here, little girl. I'm sorry, but I can't help you."

She looked up at him desperately with her wide blue eyes. "I have the money to pay for it!" She told him. "If it isn't enough, I'll go ask my Mom for the rest. Just tell me how much it costs, please."

The pharmacist's brother, who had stood silently through the interaction, was a well-dressed man. With a gentle smile, he crouched down to Susan's level. "What kind of miracle does your brother need?" He asked her.

"I don't know." Susan replied with her eyes welling up. "I just know that he's really sick, and Mom says he needs an operation, but Dad says we haven't got enough money to pay for it, so I want to use my money."

"How much do you have?" Asked the man from Chicago.

"Three dollars and eleven cents," Susan answered, barely audible. "And it's all the money I got, but I can get some more if I need to."

"Well, what a coincidence," smiled the man. "Three dollars and eleven cents - the exact price of a miracle for little brothers." He took her money jar in one hand, and with the other, he grasped her much smaller hand. "Take me to where you live. I want to see your brother and meet your parents. Let's see if I have the kind of miracle you need."

That well-dressed man from Chicago turned out to be one of the top neurosurgeons from his home city. The operation to remove Johnny's anuerism was completed without charge, and it wasn't long until Johnny was home again and recovering swiftly from his illness.

Two months later, when Susan was creeping along to her parents room in the morning, she stopped outside of the room and listened again.

"That surgery," her mother whispered, "was a real miracle. I wonder how much it would have cost?"

Susan just smiled, and crept down the hall to her little brother's room. She knew exactly how much a miracle had cost. Three dollars and eleven cents...and the faith of a little girl.

FIN.


End file.
